


whumptober: hallucination

by whatsanapocalae



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: after panchaea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 16:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsanapocalae/pseuds/whatsanapocalae
Summary: It's been 3 days since Jensen vanished.





	whumptober: hallucination

How many cups of coffee had he had? Black of course. Sugar probably would have helped but he couldn’t spend the time adding it and he never had much of a sweet tooth anyway. Still, the amount of uncut acid was turning his stomach into a rock. He couldn’t stop though. He didn’t have time to go out there, to get something to eat and he didn’t remember when he had that energy bar but it had to be hours ago. He thought he had a decent stash in his desk but it looked like he’d gone through them faster than he noticed. 

Three days. He knew that he had to sleep, and soon. He was holed up in his apartment, a little hole in the wall in the dirty augment only district of Detroit. Sure, there were parts of town in which Augs and Naturals lived together but those were expensive and people would find him easier there. The run down side fit him a lot better. 

He could hear his neighbors shouting, some people fucking in another apartment, and a dog that didn’t stop barking between 6 and 2 am. Usually it was annoying but, for once, it was bitterly desired. It was a distraction, it was sound, it was something. Because there was no sound coming in through his infolink. 

He didn’t change the channel. He didn’t look for Sarif or any of the others who had gone with him. 

The last thing he’d heard was- He bit his lip. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about what it meant. He didn’t want to think about the tone, that way that Jensen had almost sounded friendly. Because he had tried to make amends for their earlier interactions; he’d never apologized, that wasn’t in his code, but he tried to be nicer, he tried to show Jensen that he cared. It hadn’t come through but Jensen must have know something, known that it wasn’t complete animosity between them. 

He blinked back tears. His eyes had felt dry and acidic since he saw Panchaea on the news. He couldn’t feel, not yet, not while there was some chance. He had to keep looking. 

“Careful Francis, you almost sound like you regret that.” 

He rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t have time for that. He didn’t have time for regrets or emotions or anything. 

He’d lost Jensen’s GPL pretty quickly and there was no way that he was getting that back. As long as he was alive and unhacked he was supposed to be able to find him. There was nothing. 

He checked the cameras again. It had taken a long time to get into the few that were waterproofed enough to keep working and more and more of them have broken to the pressure of sinking into the arctic. 

There was only one left. He stayed on it, watching for movement, but it was just dark cold water. 

He’d hacked research drones and sent them over and under the wreck but they’d found nothing. He’d wired money to pilots to check over the surface for anyone floating in the icy waters but they’d only found corpses. 

He didn’t know where Adam was. 

He had no way of finding him. He had no way of saving him. 

He regretted everything. He regretted how much animosity he had showed to Adam over the years, how far he kept him off. He knew that there was no way to fix it, not now, but if he could fine him, maybe he could try again, and more importantly, Adam would be in the world again. 

He could imagine life without Adam, that was easy. He’d grown used to Adam being around though, they were good at covering each others blind spots, their report wasn’t kind but it was fun to go back and forth and there was no harm in it. Unless there was and he had crossed a line without realizing it. 

There was movement. 

He snapped to attention staring at the screen. The camera was catching Jensen, in his usual work attire, walking down the hall of Panchaea. His black coat was dancing in the water. His lenses were raised over his eyes. The hall was flooded though and Adam was wearing a tactical vest and there was no way that he could be there, not like that. He closed his eyes and rubbed them, knocking some tears free. 

He wasn’t surprised that Adam wasn’t there when he opened them again. 

He needed to sleep. He was seeing things. But he couldn’t. He had to find Jensen. Even if it was in frozen pieces, he had to know for certain.


End file.
